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Related papers: Reinforcement Learning with Non-Markovian Rewards

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Reinforcementlearning(RL)folkloresuggeststhathistory-basedfunctionapproximationmethods,suchas recurrent neural nets or history-based state abstraction, perform better than their memory-less counterparts, due to the fact that function…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-11-08 Gandharv Patil , Aditya Mahajan , Doina Precup

The curse of dimensionality is a widely known issue in reinforcement learning (RL). In the tabular setting where the state space $\mathcal{S}$ and the action space $\mathcal{A}$ are both finite, to obtain a nearly optimal policy with…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-10-28 Bingyan Wang , Yuling Yan , Jianqing Fan

Distributionally robust offline reinforcement learning (RL) aims to find a policy that performs the best under the worst environment within an uncertainty set using an offline dataset collected from a nominal model. While recent advances in…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-01-07 Ruiquan Huang , Yingbin Liang , Jing Yang

Reinforcement learning (RL) is currently one of the most prominent methods for optimizing dynamical systems, with breakthrough results across various fields. The framework is based on the concept of a Markov decision process (MDP), leading…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-11-17 Rene Carmona , Mathieu Lauriere

Reinforcement learning in complex environments may require supervision to prevent the agent from attempting dangerous actions. As a result of supervisor intervention, the executed action may differ from the action specified by the policy.…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2021-07-01 Eric D. Langlois , Tom Everitt

Recent RL methods have substantially improved the reasoning abilities of LLMs. Existing reward designs mainly follow two paradigms: (1) Reinforcement learning with verifiable rewards (RLVR) derives outcome signals from executable checks or…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2026-05-25 Sirui Chen , Lei Xu , Yuying Zhao , Yutian Chen , Yu Wang , Beier Zhu , Hanwang Zhang , Shengjie Zhao , Chaochao Lu

We consider the problem of preference based reinforcement learning (PbRL), where, unlike traditional reinforcement learning, an agent receives feedback only in terms of a 1 bit (0/1) preference over a trajectory pair instead of absolute…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-02-07 Aldo Pacchiano , Aadirupa Saha , Jonathan Lee

Reward Machines (RMs) are an established mechanism in Reinforcement Learning (RL) to represent and learn sparse, temporally extended tasks with non-Markovian rewards. RMs rely on high-level information in the form of labels that are emitted…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-04 Thomas Krug , Daniel Neider

Designing sample-efficient and computationally feasible reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms is particularly challenging in environments with large or infinite state and action spaces. In this paper, we advance this effort by presenting…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-10-04 Zakaria Mhammedi

Reinforcement Learning (RL) methods have emerged as a popular choice for training an efficient and effective dialogue policy. However, these methods suffer from sparse and unstable reward signals returned by a user simulator only when a…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2020-09-18 Ziming Li , Sungjin Lee , Baolin Peng , Jinchao Li , Julia Kiseleva , Maarten de Rijke , Shahin Shayandeh , Jianfeng Gao

Reinforcement learning (RL) is an important field of research in machine learning that is increasingly being applied to complex optimization problems in physics. In parallel, concepts from physics have contributed to important advances in…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-05-11 Argenis Arriojas , Jacob Adamczyk , Stas Tiomkin , Rahul V. Kulkarni

Reinforcement learning (RL) tasks are typically framed as Markov Decision Processes (MDPs), assuming that decisions are made at fixed time intervals. However, many applications of great importance, including healthcare, do not satisfy this…

In this paper, a review of model-free reinforcement learning for learning of dynamical systems in uncertain environments has discussed. For this purpose, the Markov Decision Process (MDP) will be reviewed. Furthermore, some learning…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-05-21 Mehran Attar , Mohammadreza Dabirian

We consider reinforcement learning (RL) in episodic Markov decision processes (MDPs) with linear function approximation under drifting environment. Specifically, both the reward and state transition functions can evolve over time but their…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-04-16 Huozhi Zhou , Jinglin Chen , Lav R. Varshney , Ashish Jagmohan

The primary obstacle for applying reinforcement learning (RL) to real-world robotics is the design of effective reward functions. While recently learning-based Process Reward Models (PRMs) are a promising direction, they are often hindered…

As a paradigm for sequential decision making in unknown environments, reinforcement learning (RL) has received a flurry of attention in recent years. However, the explosion of model complexity in emerging applications and the presence of…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-07-22 Yuejie Chi , Yuxin Chen , Yuting Wei

Reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms struggle with learning optimal policies for tasks where reward feedback is sparse and depends on a complex sequence of events in the environment. Probabilistic reward machines (PRMs) are finite-state…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-20 Jan Corazza , Hadi Partovi Aria , Daniel Neider , Zhe Xu

Reinforcement learning (RL) problems are often phrased in terms of Markov decision processes (MDPs). In this thesis we go beyond MDPs and consider RL in environments that are non-Markovian, non-ergodic and only partially observable. Our…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2016-11-29 Jan Leike

Reinforcement learning would enjoy better success on real-world problems if domain knowledge could be imparted to the algorithm by the modelers. Most problems have both hidden state and unknown dynamics. Partially observable Markov decision…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2013-01-07 Christian R. Shelton

Preference-based reinforcement learning (PbRL) is an approach that enables RL agents to learn from preference, which is particularly useful when formulating a reward function is challenging. Existing PbRL methods generally involve a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-10-30 Gaon An , Junhyeok Lee , Xingdong Zuo , Norio Kosaka , Kyung-Min Kim , Hyun Oh Song